Falling
by ArtikGato
Summary: The final confrontation between Inuyasha, Kagome, and Kikyo. Who will Inuyasha choose? This story is too short for me to summarize better...but read it anyway!


**Falling**

**By ArtikGato**

Disclaimer: _Fukai__ Mori_ is the spiffiest song ever!! Sesshomaru rocks!! ^____^ Oh, and I own nothing. Except, of course, for my own rapidly diminishing sanity...

Author's Notes: *sigh* Yet ANOTHER KagoInu story! Yeesh! It's practically all I can write about right now. Which is odd, considering that I haven't been watching _Inuyasha_ too much lately... weird. Anywayz, check out my other Inuyasha stories here of ff.net:

A Tale of Two Shippos: (parody): storyid=1142313

Letters: (KagoInu romance): storyid=1153892

Moment of Weakness (KagoInu romance): storyid=1170637

Christmas Presents (KagoInu romance...again....): storyid=1192181

Feel free to review. You don't neccesarily HAVE to give me comments, but they are much appreciated. Flame me if you want, but I shall use the flames to roast Kikyo...bwahahahahaha!! (note: I don't like Kikyo. Can you tell?! Please don't be offended if you do like Kikyo, because I don't bash her in this story. Actually, my Yami (dark) side is the one that hates Kikyo...)

           "Kagome, tell me what is wrong, NOW!" Inuyasha demanded. Kagome just turned away from him, staring sadly into space, silent. Sango, Shippo, and Miroku stood a good ways off. 

            "What do you think is the matter with her?" Sango asked. 

            "Who knows?! I just hope that she will feel better soon," Shippo said, looking concerned.

            "Let's see...we were walking along here, when she suddenly stopped, got off of her 'bike', and walked over to that cliff," Miroku informed them.

            "She has been silent for a while now. Ever since we fought Naraku and were caught in those nightmare spells, in fact," Sango replied. 

            "Do you think that whatever she saw in her nightmare is causing this?" Shippo asked.

            "Well, it could be anything, but I'm willing to bet that you're right," Miroku answered. 

            "I demand that you tell me what is wrong with you!!!" Inuyasha yelled at her. Kagome just stood there, not moving an inch despite the fact that he was screaming in her ear.

            "Perhaps she's posessed by something?" Sango suggested.

            "No, I think that we'd be able to sense if she was," Miroku said.

            "Maybe she just doesn't want to talk to him right now," Shippo offered.

            "You *&^%$ Kagome answer me D^%$IT!!! &^&^&*&*^&%^&*%)*(&)%&**)^!!!" Inuyasha cursed. Kagome narrowed her eyes.

            "Sit," she said. THWOCK!!! Inuyasha hit the ground. He got up, snarling.

            "What was THAT for, *&^%%?!" he demanded. 

            "Inuyasha! That's enough!" Sango called to him. He turned and glared at her.

            "Make yourselves comfortable up there, because I'm not moving from this spot until she answers me!!!" he bellowed back to them. Sango was just about to protest and throw her boomerang at him, when a glowing pink arrow flew past her and hit the ground at Inuyasha's feet, showering him and Kagome with rock shrapnel. Kagome didn't even flinch, and continued to stare at the ground several hundred feet below. Kikyo walked out of the woods behind the two humans and the kitsune demon, an evil smirk on her face.

            "You want to know what is wrong with her, do you? Then I'll tell you," she said. 

            "How would YOU know what is wrong with her? What did you do to her?!" Inuyasha demanded, taking up a stance in defense of Kagome, who slowly began to turn around and face Kikyo. The aforementioned priestess laughed evilly. 

            "She is afraid of the truth," Kikyo started. 

            "Truth?!" Inuyasha asked, confused.       

            "..about you and me. She knows that you will always love me, and you could never love her. How tragic," Kikyo said. Inuyasha stared at her, bewildered, for a second, before he glared at her, and turned to Kagome.

            "Is that tr--" he started, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the expression on her face...and, more importantly, how close she was to the edge of the cliff they were standing on. He paled in fear, as a sacred arrow hit the ground next to him, setting her off balance and throwing her off the edge of the cliff. He dove down toward her, catching her by the hand, and just barely holding onto the edge of the cliff for dear life. 

            "Kagome!" Sango, Shippo and Miroku exclaimed, running toward them. Kikyo stood, glowering in rage.

            "How dare he save her!" she said, and began to stalk toward them, with a deadly look of anger in her dead eyes. 

            "Hang on, Kagome! We've got you!" Miroku exclaimed, as he and Sango hauled Inuyasha up to the cliff, with Shippo cheering for them. 

            "Not so fast!" an enraged Kikyo exclaimed, and a bolt of pink lightning hit Sango and Shippo, causing them to go flying off in one direction, hitting the ground with a thud. 

            "Kikyo!" Inuyasha and Miroku exclaimed.

            "What are you doing?!" Inuyasha demanded. Miroku stepped in front of them, holding out his hands.  

            "You just focus on getting Kagome out of danger!" the monk said, and grasped his prayer beads with his wind-tunnel-free hand.

            "No, don't Miroku!" Kagome exclaimed. Everyone that was concscious turned to look at her in suprize.

            "Ka--" Inuyasha started.

            "Don't use your Wind Tunnel!" Kagome pleaded. Kikyo turned to her, glaring at her and Inuyasha, who helped her up onto the cliff.

            "Why are you helping me?!" she demanded. Kagome turned to look at her, with fire in her eyes.

            "Because I pity you, Kikyo," she replied.

            "Huh?" the men asked, bewildered.

            "You **pity** me?!" Kikyo shouted.

            "Yes, I do. I pity you, walking the Earth, tormented, revenge your only motivation to keep going. I pity you very much, Kikyo. And I thought that by helping you--" Kagome replied.

            "That I would miraculously realize that revenge is bad?! That I should just die, and give up my purpose?!" Kikyo demanded. Kagome glared at her.

            "--that your existence is pointless now!!" Kagome shouted in fury. Kikyo took an arrow from her quiver, and almost instantly had fired it.

            "I've heard _enough!!_" the priestess screamed. The arrow hit Kagome, but instead of stabbing through her, it exploded in the air, throwing her through the air and into the canyon below.

            "Kagome!!" Miroku and Inuyasha exclaimed. Inuyasha made ready to jump in after her, but Miroku shoved him aside.

            "Wind Tunnel!" he exclaimed, opening the air void in his hand. Kagome stopped falling in the air, and was slowly drawn back up the canyon in the wind. A pink bolt of lightning hit the monk, sending him tumbling into the canyon head over feet. He shut the air void, and grabbed the edge of the cliff with the other hand. Inuyasha sprang to his feet, and prepared to jump into the canyon after Kagome once again, but a glowing arrow shot past him, narrowly missing his head. A few strands of silver hair fell and blew away in the wind. He turned around to face Kikyo. She stood, poised, with another arrow in her bow ready to fire at the dog demon. She suddenly bolted to an upright position, looking as if something had hit her from the sky. The arrow fell from her hand and the bowstring went slack in the other. 

            "Inuyasha! Look!" Miroku suddenly exclaimed. Inuyasha whirled around and looked to where the monk was pointing. Several orbs of pure white energy were holding Kagome suspended a few hundred feet in the air. She looked as if she was unconscious.

            "_Her soul.."_ Inuyasha thought. A white orb of light rose from out of her heart, and zoomed up, past Inuyasha, and struck the paralyzed Kikyo in her heart. He whirled around to face her. She blinked, dropping the bow, and fell to her knees.

            "Kikyo?!" he asked, taking a step toward her.

            "Go save her," said the priestess. Inuyasha gasped, taken aback.             

            "_Her voice...there is something different about her voice."_ Inuyasha thought. 

            "Kikyo?" he asked, unsure. She looked up at him, and he could instantly tell that she had changed. Her eyes no longer looked cold and dead, but full of warmth and fire. Her face was wet from tears. 

            "What?" he asked, in disbelief.

            "I understand now what she feels. She too walks in torment, just like I do," Kikyo said. She shook her head. "I see now that this cannot go on much longer. One of us will have to die," 

            "What?!" 

            "Inuyasha, don't you see? You and I and her, none of us belong now in this world. And I certainly do not," Kikyo continued.

            "But--"

            "Go to her, Inuyasha. Save her. She is alive now, and you are alive now. You cannot change the past, or what happened to me. But you can change the future now," Kikyo said.

            "But...I...why are you doing this?" Inuyasha asked. She looked him straight in the eyes.

            "Because I cannot stand to see you or her tormented any longer because of me," Kikyo said. And with that, she smiled, something that she had not done in more than fifty years, and began to fade.

            "Kikyo?!" Inuyasha exclaimed.

            "Just go!" said Kikyo's voice, as two orbs of white light emerged from her dissappearing body. The orbs shot over his shoulder and down into the canyon. He turned around and leaped after them, glancing one last time at Kikyo, gratefully.

            "Inuyasha!!" Miroku exclaimed.

            "I've got to get to her before her soul does!" Inuyasha exclaimed, diving straight down through the air toward the still-floating Kagome. He caught up with the orbs of light screaming down toward her, and continued to fall down...down...down into the canyon. Just as he was about to reach her, the orbs of white light sped up, and a bright explosion of white light shot out from her as they connected with her.

            "Kagome!!" Inuyasha exclaimed, shielding his eyes as he continued to fall.

            "Inuyasha!" came a shout through the light. A hand suddenly grabbed onto one of his outstretched claws, and he opened his eyes to see Kagome, fully awake aware, looking up at him. He smiled in relief, and swung her through the air so that she was on his back like when they were 'flying'. He then drew the Tetsusaiga, at full power, and stabbed it into the side of the canyon.

            There was an ear peircing screech as the metal Tetsusaiga cut through the stone wall of the canyon. Sango and Shippo sprung awake, clamping their hands over their ears. Miroku laboriously hauled himself onto the cliff, covering his ears in agony. All of a sudden, the screeching stopped. The three companions blinked, jumped up, and dashed over to the side of the cliff, to peer down. 

            Kagome heard the ear shattering screech stop, and opened her eyes, only to see red cloth. She released her death grip on Inuyasha's shoulders, and looked up. The top of the canyon seemed to be miles above them. Her eyes were brought back to the Tetsusaiga, buried nearly to it's hilt in the side of the canyon, a huge gash of burnt and sliced rock above it. Inuyasha was holding onto the Tetsusaiga's handle with one clawed hand, and had covered his ears with the other. She saw him turn his head and say something, but it sounded to her like a dull murmur over the loud ringing in her head. She let go of Inuyasha with one hand to rub her left temple, which was throbbing in pain. Inuyasha turned his head farther toward her, concerned. He said something else, but she couldn't tell what he had said. He looked at her, worried, then pulled the Tetsusaiga from the cliffside, dropping the rest of the twenty feet and landing on the ground below effortlessly. He put her down on the ground, and she furiously rubbed her temples, trying to get the ringing out of her ears. After a few minutes, she began to faintly hear words instead of murmurs.

            "Are you ok? Can you hear me?" Inuyasha asked. She nodded.

            "Barely," she replied. 

            "Gomen," he apologized. She looked at him, suprized.

            "No, there's no need for you to apologize. You saved my life, by any means possible. And I'm sure I'll be able to hear fine in a little while," she replied. He nodded, sighing a little in relief. 

            "HEEEEEEEY!!! ARE YOU TWO ALL RIIIIIIGHT?!" came a cry from above. Inuyasha and Kagome turned to look up, seeing what looked to be Miroku and Sango hailing them from above. But, with the sun's position and the height of the cliff top compared with the bottom of the canyon, they could very well have been two bears who sounded remarkably like Miroku and Sango...

            "Yeah! We're okay!!" Inuyasha called to them. He then turned to Kagome.

            "Kagome...about what Kikyo said earlier..." he started. She turned to him, looking sad, and even a tad bit nervous.

            _"She is afraid of the truth"_

_            "Truth?!" _

_            "..about you and me. She knows that you will always love me, and you could never love her. How tragic," _

            "W-what about it?" Kagome asked. Inuyasha sighed, but continued.

            "It's not true," he replied.

            "What's not true?" she asked, nervously. He seemed to smile a little. 

            "You know that I _will_ always love Kikyo..." he started. She turned to stare at the ground.

            "Yes..." she said. He bit his lip, but continued.

            "But it's not true that I could never love _you_," he said. She froze for a second.

            "It's not?" she asked. He shook his head, and laid a hand on her shoulder. He leaned down toward her.

            "I love you, Kagome," he whispered in her ear. She stopped for a moment, running that sentence over in her mind a few times.

            _"He..._" she thought. Her heart felt like it was doing jumping jacks in her chest. Her eyes watered up with tears...but not tears of sadness, like so many times before. She abruptly turned and threw her arms around Inuyasha. He jolted, suprized, but hugged her in return.

            "Aishiteru," she whispered to him.

            "Aww!!!" Sango and Miroku chorused, watching the pair from the cliff above.

            "Eww,  they're not gonna kiss are they?" asked Shippo. Miroku put a hand on his head.

            "How is it that _he_ can still get her despite the fact that he argues with her and calls her obscene things on a day-to-day basis, and yet I treat _you_ like a goddess, and I still don't get you?" he asked Sango. She blushed a little, and actually smiled.

            "Well, it might have something to do with the fact that _he_ does not ask _her_ to bear his child," Sango pointed out.

            "Yet," Miroku replied. Sango was completely taken aback by that, and burst into a fit of laughter, picturing Inuyasha and Kagome with kids. Shippo looked completely disgusted by the whole ordeal. Miroku began to laugh as well, picturing little Shippos only with black and/or white hair and Inuyasha's ears. 

            "What's so FUNNY?!?" came an annoyed scream from the bottom of the canyon, which only made Sango and Miroku laugh harder. 

The end!__


End file.
